Learn about this topic in these articles:

Assorted References

The Estonians are first mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus (1st century ad) in Germania. Their political system was patriarchal, based on clans headed by elders. The first invaders of the country were Vikings, who from the mid-9th century passed through Estonia and Latvia…

…signed by Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia on Sept. 12, 1934, that laid the basis for close cooperation among those states, particularly in foreign affairs. Shortly after World War I, efforts were made to conclude a Baltic defense alliance among Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, all of which had recently…

…(1918–20), military conflict in which Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania fended off attacks from both Soviet Russia and Germany. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania had been part of the Russian Empire since the end of the 18th century, but after the Russian Revolution of 1917 they became independent states. After World War…

Latvia, and Estonia—declined to join the new organization.) The CIS formally came into being on Dec. 21, 1991, and began operations the following month, with the city of Minsk in Belarus designated as its administrative centre. In August 2008, following an escalation of hostilities between Russia and…

Similarly, the cyberattacks against Estonia in 2007 were conducted in the context of a wider political crisis surrounding the removal of a Soviet war memorial from the city centre of Tallinn to its suburbs, causing controversy among ethnic Russians in Estonia and in Russia itself.

…governments within the Russian Empire: Estonia (i.e., the northern part of ethnic Estonia), Livonia (i.e., the southern part of ethnic Estonia and northern Latvia), and Courland. After the October Revolution in Russia (1917), Latvia and Estonia proclaimed their independence; they were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, though under…

…and social domination over the Estonians and Latvians. The young Slavophile and landowning nobleman Yury Samarin, a junior official in Riga, was severely reprimanded by the emperor for his anti-German activities.

…step he negotiated with the Estonian nobility, which agreed to Swedish rule in 1561 and thereby laid the foundation for a Swedish Baltic empire. His aspirations led to conflicts with Denmark and Lübeck, which, up to the 16th century, had been the leading powers in this region. Control of the…

…became the capital of independent Estonia from 1918 to 1940. (Estonia was annexed to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1940 to 1991.) The city was occupied by German forces from 1941 to 1944 and was severely damaged. After the Supreme Soviet of Estonia declared independence in 1991, Tallinn…

Soviet Union

The Bolsheviks had also invaded Estonia only to be met by local troops, a British naval squadron, Yudenich’s Russian nationalists, and even General Rüdiger von der Goltz’s German veterans seeking to maintain German authority on the Baltic. Against these disparate and uncoordinated forces the Bolsheviks deployed the Red Army under…

Lithuania, and Estonia. On the 50th anniversary of the pact, August 23, an estimated 1,000,000 Balts formed a human chain linking their capitals to denounce the annexation as illegal and to demand self-determination. In September the Hungarian government suspended its effort to stave off the flight of…

Estonia and Latvia joined Lithuania by declaring independence, and this time the United States immediately extended recognition. On August 24 Ukraine declared independence, Belorussia (Belarus) the next day, and

World War I

Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Poles were, by the end of 1917, all in various stages of the dissidence from which the independent states of the postwar period were to emerge; and, at the same time, Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, and Azerbaijanis were no less active in…

republics of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia were annexed by the Soviet Union and were organized as Soviet republics in August 1940. The Nonaggression Pact became a dead letter on June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany, after having invaded much of western and central Europe, attacked the Soviet Union without warning…

World War II

on October 10, 1939, constrained Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to admit Soviet garrisons onto their territories. Approached with similar demands, Finland refused to comply, even though the U.S.S.R. offered territorial compensation elsewhere for the cessions that it was requiring for its own strategic reasons. Finland’s armed forces amounted to about…

>Estonia had been forced to accept Soviet occupation. When Finland resisted Soviet demands for border rectifications and bases, Stalin ordered the Red Army to attack on November 30. He expected a lightning victory of his own that would impress Hitler and increase Soviet security in…